As part of the Fed’s year-long review of its monetary policy strategy, tools and communications practices, the St. Louis Fed is assembling members of its six advisory councils, representing a geographically and industry-diverse group of stakeholders.

Grades K-2

In economics, opportunity cost is the value of the next-best alternative given up when a decision is made. In other words, it’s the benefit missed from the choice you passed up.

Young children in the kindergarten- to second-grade age range can grasp this and other personal finance concepts—such as saving and spending—from the book Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday.

Our Econ Ed team has prepared a handy Q&A discussion for parents, so you can aid in your child’s learning.

(Because when it comes to reading, it’s hard to think of a next-best alternative for developing young minds. As Economic Education Officer Mary Suiter has noted, research shows that children can develop financial behaviors as early as age 7.)

Grades 3-5

Reading with children opens up the opportunity to teach important ideas and talk about them, too.

You can teach the basics of saving money to reach financial goals through The Piggy Bank Primer, a beautifully illustrated e-book. It’s designed for children in the third- to fifth-grade range. It uses a story, activities and puzzles to introduce basic economic concepts, including:

Saving and savings plans

Spending and costs

Benefits

Goods and services

Grades 6-8

By junior high, students are ready to mature their grasp of finance and economics, tackling concepts that will serve them into adulthood.

That’s why the No-Frills Money Skills video series uses plain language and clear graphics so that students can relate unfamiliar topics to everyday life. It’s designed for middle- to high-schoolers … or anyone who could use a brush-up on subjects like retirement accounts, stocks and bonds and car insurance.

Episode 1, above, explains how compound interest helps money grow over time. “It’s not just how much you save, but when you start that will help your money grow. So start early and save often,” says Senior Economic Education Specialist Kris Bertelsen.

Grades 9-12

Data literacy is a big focus for the St. Louis Fed, which counts among its signature offerings a tool called “FRED.”

That’s short for Federal Reserve Economic Database, and it contains an ever-expanding list of economic and socioeconomic data series—aggregated from reliable primary sources around the world.

Foreign exchange rates? Find them in FRED. Unemployment? That’s in FRED. The yield curve? In FRED. Housing prices? You get the idea.

FRED is a powerful resource, and it’s totally free. Journalists, economists and finance professionals use FRED, and so can parents and students. To get started, try graphing real GDP (like I did above) with step-by-step instructions from our economic education team. You can make your graph any color you’d like!

Like What You See? Let a Teacher Know

Our Econ Ed professionals are passionate about partnering with teachers nationwide, providing them with professional development and tools to teach economics and personal finance. Economic Education Coordinator Scott Wolla says this approach enables the team to “teach one, reach many.”

If you’d like to share resources with your child’s teacher, here are more idea starters:

Kindergarten

The St. Louis Fed and Dallas Fed joined with the Texas Council on Economic Education to produce five active-learning lessons for the kindergarten classroom. Each lesson is based on a story about two cousins: one who lives on a farm, one who lives in a city. Students will hear to the stories and recall information. They’ll develop an understanding of concepts while applying language arts and math skills. This lesson received the 2019 Curriculum Gold Award of Excellence from the National Association of Economic Educators.

Elementary

Students will follow young Ella as she learns important life lessons and concepts. How do bank accounts offer security and a return on savings? What is credit, and how does interest affect the final cost of something financed with credit? How do you make tough decisions? This lesson received the 2019 Curriculum Gold Award of Excellence from the National Association of Economic Educators.

Middle School

This set of 10 lessons helps students understand the basic rationale for making trades; the gains possible from trade; and how trading is done between people of different countries. Students learn fundamental concepts (scarcity, economic wants, resources, etc.) as well as international trade concepts (exports, imports, tariffs, quotas, exchange rates, trade routes). Most lessons employ simulations and other active-learning strategies—from jumping hurdles, to tossing a ball, to designing paper money. Activities integrate other curriculum areas including math, language arts and geography.

High School

FRED offers endless opportunities for teaching macroeconomics, history, information literacy and more. The St. Louis Fed offers tutorials, instructional guides, lesson plans and activities so teachers can put data to work with their students. This includes a package of AP Macro activities that aligns with curriculum.

Previous Post

Next Post

Commenting Policy: We encourage comments and discussions on our posts, even those that disagree with conclusions, if they are done in a respectful and
courteous manner. All comments posted to our blog go through a moderator, so they won't appear immediately after being submitted.
We reserve the right to remove or not publish inappropriate comments. This includes, but is not limited to, comments that are:

Vulgar, obscene, profane or otherwise disrespectful or discourteous

For commercial use, including spam

Threatening, harassing or constituting personal attacks

Violating copyright or otherwise infringing on third-party rights

Off-topic or significantly political

The St. Louis Fed will only respond to comments if we are clarifying a point. Comments are limited to 1,500 characters,
so please edit your thinking before posting. While you will retain all of your ownership rights in any comment you submit, posting
comments means you grant the St. Louis Fed the royalty-free right, in perpetuity, to use, reproduce, distribute, alter and/or display them, and
the St. Louis Fed will be free to use any ideas, concepts, artwork, inventions, developments, suggestions or techniques embodied in your comments
for any purpose whatsoever, with or without attribution, and without compensation to you. You will also waive all moral rights you may
have in any comment you submit.

The St. Louis Fed uses Disqus software for the comment functionality on this blog.
You can read the Disqus privacy policy. Disqus uses
cookies and third party cookies. To learn more about these cookies and how to disable them,
please see this article.

About Open Vault

The St. Louis Fed Open Vault blog explains everyday economic concepts and provides a look at the people and programs that make the St. Louis Fed central to America’s economy.

Views expressed are not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis or of the Federal Reserve System.